Hungarian Fashion is not an Oxymoron

I see myself as a bit of a fashion prophet (ill-fitting jeans and guy's tshirts are TOTALLY GOING TO HAPPEN), so I consider myself fully justified in criticizing the fashion decisions of my local Hungarians.

Let's start at the top, shall we? Once upon a time (da dun..dun..dun), in a far off kingdom...

Oops. Wrong top. Friggin' homonyms. Anyhowdydo, I meant at starting at the physical top, as in, hair. For young Hungarian men, there is only one style, one religion, and that is the faux-hawk. Yes, the same frightening hairstyle so proudly sported by the preteen dreamboys in American middle schools (that, and the half-pipe. I'm not sure I will ever understand that). For those of you unacquainted with the glorious faux-hawk, it is similar to mohawk, except done with gel instead of scissors. Yes, people take absolutely normal, possibly attractive hair and FORCE it into an imitation of bored-middle-class-Hot-Topic-chic. When I saw this on an 8-year-old boy, I very nearly made a citizen's arrest of his mother for child abuse, my enthusiasm contained only by the fact that I was not, in fact, a citizen, and an exchange student's arrest has all the power of the 'Quiet Please' sign outside Szimpla. For the record, if you go to Szimpla on weeknights, that's your deal but please SHUT THE HELL UP YOU ARE RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW AND I NEED TO SLEEP, DAMN IT.

For the women, the coif of choice is that fashionable import from gay Paris: Freakin BRIGHT Red. Every lass (AIWATNF) from 9 to 90 has her hair dyed, in varying degrees, to match a tomato, a burning carrot, or that spot on my leg that I get when I try to go to the bathroom without turning on the light and oh my god who put that chair there?! Somewhere around 50 or 60, Hungarian women wise up to the fact that they are not getting any younger and that maybe their appearance should reflect a more mature outlook and go get their hair dyed an EVEN BRIGHTER red, because blinded passerbys can't see wrinkles.

Moving on down, I have nothing particularly enlightening (YES EVERYTHING ELSE WAS OKAY) to say about Hungarian shirts, except that I have to stifle a giggle every time I see this one guy at dance wearing a shirt with "American Joint Distribution Committee" on the back because, as we have covered before, I am actually 5 years old. That, and I whole-heartedly approve of the sparkles. Continue sparkling, Hungarian shirts!

Now we come to the pièce de résistance, or rather, pants de résistance, or rather, lack-of-pants de résistance. My fellow citizens of the Earth, be you American, Hungarian, or Inuit (love the fur, btw!), I stand before you a desperate woman, a single plea on my cracked lips: LEGGINGS ARE NOT PANTS. Until we as a people acknowledge this simple fact, there will never be peace on this planet. I beg you. In particular, I beg the girl I saw at Morrisson's on Friday night wearing LEOPARD PRINT LEGGINGS as the sole boundary between her thighs and the afflicted eyes of the world. What? You want me to snark on this? How can I go any further except to say that these were LEGGINGS with LEOPARD PRINT on them? How have we as a species let this happen? Is it ignorance? I pray so, because if it is, I may have the solution. If you feel at all uneasy with the differences between mere leg coverings and pants, you have come to the right place. A Broad, Abroad (AIWATNF) proudly, if somehwat desperately , presents How To Tell If You Are Wearing Pants:
I hope this clears things up. Some folks might say I have overlooked these mythical creatures called "skirts," to which I say, "Sorry, no fantasy."

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that I wrote the first part of this entry while wearing a black men's t-shirt, tan capris, and bright striped knee-high socks, and the second part in black men's jeans and a t-shirt worn over a 7- or 8-year old bra that has been held together with duct tape for the past 4 or 5. Look for these in Milan next Fall.